TODAY IN HISTORY ― FEBRUARY 3

February 3 is the 34th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 331 days remaining until the end of the year (332 in leap years). This date is slightly more likely to fall on a Wednesday, Friday or Sunday (58 in 400 years each) than on Monday or Tuesday (57), and slightly less likely to occur on a Thursday or Saturday (56).

NATIONAL DAY THE MUSIC DIED 

1740 – Charles de Bourbon, King of Naples, invites Jews to return to Sicily. 

1780 – In one of the most famous crimes of post-Revolution America, Barnett Davenport commits an awful mass murder in rural Connecticut. Caleb Mallory, his wife, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren were killed in their home by their boarder, Davenport.

1781 – On the evening of February 3, 1781, American General Nathanael Greene and his troops successfully cross the Yadkin River to evade General Charles Cornwallis. The crossing followed consecutive Patriot losses at the Catawba River and at Tarrant's Tavern, as well as heavy rainfall on February 1, which Greene feared would soon make the river impassable.

1783 – Spain recognizes United States independence.

1809 – The Territory of Illinois organizes (including present-day Wisconsin).

1854 – The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares U.S. Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional.

1865 – On this day in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln meets with a delegation of Confederate officials at Hampton Roads, Virginia, to discuss a possible peace agreement. Lincoln refused to grant the delegation any concessions, however, and the meeting ended within hours.

1870 – The state of Iowa ratifies the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution allowing suffrage for all races and color.

1887 – To avoid disputed national elections, Congress creates the Electoral Count Act.

1913 – The 16th Amendment, creating a federal income tax, is ratified.

1917 – On this day in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson speaks for two hours before a historic session of Congress to announce that the United States is breaking diplomatic relations with Germany.  

1919 – The Bolshevik army is defeated in a series of clashes with the White Russians, who are fighting to reclaim the government after the 1917 revolution.

1924 – Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, dies in Washington, D.C., at the age of 67.

1928 – Paleoanthropologist Davidson Black reports his findings on the ancient human fossils found at Zhoukoudian, China in the journal Nature and declares them to be a new species he names 'Sinanthropus pekinensis' (now known as 'Homo erectus').

1941 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Federal Wage and Hour law, sets minimum wages & maximum hours.

1944 – On this day, American forces invade and take control of the Marshall Islands, long occupied by the Japanese and used by them as a base for military operations. 

1950 – Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs, a German-born British scientist who helped developed the atomic bomb, is arrested in Great Britain for passing top-secret information about the bomb to the Soviet Union. The arrest of Fuchs led authorities to several other individuals involved in a spy ring, culminating with the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and their subsequent execution.

1959 – "The Day the Music Died" plane crash kills rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, J. P. Richardson and pilot near Clear Lake, IA.

1971 – OPEC mandates "total embargo" against any company that rejects 55 percent tax rate.

1993 – Federal trial of 4 police officers charged with civil rights violations in videotaped beating of Rodney King begins in Los Angeles, CA.

2005 – On February 3, 2005, Alberto Gonzales won Senate confirmation as the nation's first Hispanic attorney general despite protests over his record on torture.

TODAY'S BIRTHS

1807 – Joseph E. Johnston, American Civil War general and politician (d. 1891)

1809 – Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1847)

1811 – Horace Greeley, American journalist and politician (d. 1872)

1894 – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (d. 1978)

1907 – James A. Michener, American author and philanthropist (d. 1997)

From Wikipedia and Google (images), ex as noted.